Monthly Archives: November 2012

Movie Trailer of the Week:

Les Misérables – In theatres December 25th, 2012Synopsis:In 19th century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless police officer Javert after he breaks parole, agrees to care for factory worker Fantine’s daughter, Cosette. The fateful decision changes their lives forever.
Based on the epic, multiple tome, novel by Victor Hugo, Les Misérables holds a soft spot in my heart. I read it twice and in French! This time around, yes, the film is being made again, it puts Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Hugh Jackman, Helena Bonham Carter, Russell Crowe and Sacha Baron Cohen together in an amazingly talented all start cast.

YouTube Video of the Week:

Does the Universe have a purpose?
It will all depend on your personal point of view, religious outlook and possibly your overall understanding of how things work. The same question was posed to Neil deGrasse Tyson, famed astrophysicist and science commentator, and the above video takes his answer and lays it out with some light music and awesome animation. Enjoy.

Battlefield 1942 – EAYou might think me a tad insane for this choice, but hear me out. Originally released on September 10th, 2002, this was one of the first games to allow 64 players to face off in multi-player matches. It has spawned numerous expansions and sequels, and is one of the top revenue generating titles for EA. Well, to celebrate 10 years, it is now free. Go get it, and I’ll see you on the battlefield.

As always, I’m still open to suggestions for other categories, and for nominations to get included on the list. You can let me know at: oftheweekATleighcDOTcom

Be warned fellow consumer, this former Wyndham employee is done with WyndhamRewards, and Wyndham for good.

My former employer runs a rewards program, that like most, let you earn points based on your purchases, or in this case, your hotel stays. I was there when the program launched, and I’ve seen it go through a name change, website updates and integration into the property management software used at over 6,000 hotels worldwide. I left that company last summer (2011) on good terms, I gave notice (unlike most), I worked 2 weeks(again, unlike most) and I shared as much of my knowledge as I could in that time, so that I could move on to something that challenged my mind more.
During my tenure there, I earned a few of the reward points, thanks to having to travel around for work, and it was also used as an employee recognition system, awarding points to people who do a good job or win contests. I never won any contests, but I was nominated as a good employee a few times, and I think I set the company record for the longest period worked without taking any sick time, yeah, I remember that… 2 years, 10 months and 17 days, and I even capped out my bankable sick time, 144 hours worth of it, which I lost when I left.
Next year, I want to go away to celebrate my wedding anniversary and figured it might be worth converting my unused point to another rewards program to use to discount my flights. So, I go and log into the website to check my balance and convert the points… guess what, they have been removed due to in-activity after 18 months. Yup, I am not overly amused, but I get it, it was in the terms of service, but you could have warned me, it’s not like sending an email costs you anything.

So to make my long sob story short, and put what I should have written near the top to make this article more interesting…
I lost 52,400 WyndhamRewards points, which would have turned into around 20,960 Aeroplan miles, which would have saved me an extra $250 on my vacation next year.Wyndham Worldwide, Wyndham Hotels, Wyndham branded hotels and any other brand of hotel or other service now, or in the future that falls under Wyndham’s umbrella of control will not get any of my business, nor my family’s business, or any other people that I can convince to go elsewhere. I used to speak highly of my former employer, but that ends today.

/endrant

A Vanishing Point, not like WyndhamRewards points, since this is working as intended.

Movie Trailer of the Week:

A Good Day to Die Hard – In theatres February 14th, 2013Synopsis:John McClane travels to Russia to help out his seemingly wayward son, Jack, only to discover that Jack is a CIA operative working to prevent a nuclear-weapons heist, causing the father and son to team up against underworld forces.
Yippe Ki-Yay Mother Trucker*! Yes, Bruce Willis returns again as our favourite Cop in the wrong place at the wrong time, in this, the 5th instalment in the Die Hard franchise. This time, looks like he is travelling to the Motherland, to prevent something that is highly unlikely to happen.

* Homage to all the television stations that censor the best phrase in the film.

YouTube Video of the Week:

PSY and MC Hammer perform at the American Music Awards
Maybe, sometime in 2013, the Gangnam Style phenomena will finally be over, but until that time, we will continue to be flooded with more Gangnam Style videos, mixes and mash-ups. Now he teams up with 90’s rap star MC Hammer, and even dons the famous parachute pants. On the topic of the AMA’s, they are another waste of time and money, seriously, they gave Justin Bieber the Artist of the Year award twice.

Ingress
I’m in, are you? Invites seem almost impossible to get. This is going to be an amazing social experiment, and I’m glad it is backed by Google. The only thing about getting in so early is trying to find portals to hack, which is damn near impossible in New Brunswick.

As always, I’m still open to suggestions for other categories, and for nominations to get included on the list. You can let me know at: oftheweekATleighcDOTcom

Movie Trailer of the Week:

Red Dawn – In theatres November 21st, 2012Synopsis: A group of teenagers look to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers. Sounds simple enough, and nice to see they didn’t do an exact copy of the original 1984 film of the same name. This time they pair up Chris Hemsworth, who also played Thor, with a bunch of people you have probably never heard of. It looks like a decent amount of action, paired up with some good special effects.

YouTube Video of the Week:

The Bella Cullen Diaries
I am not a fan of the real series and I’m a fan of good parodies. What’s Trending has teamed up with some of the wittiest YouTube celebrities to put together this cute little ditty. The short stars Grace Helbig as Bella and Taryn Southern as Rosalie and 2 guys that I don’t know of, and is based upon another YouTube webseries, The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

YouTube Channel you should be subscribed to, of the week:

The Daily Grace
https://www.youtube.com/dailygrace
Remember how I mentioned Grace Helbig before, well, this is her channel. She puts out new videos every weekday, and they are downright amusing, sometimes helpful, and always good for a laugh.
News Article of the Week:

As always, I’m still open to suggestions for other categories, and for nominations to get included on the list. You can let me know at: oftheweekATleighcDOTcom

Note: This is the first time I’ve tried the build in Publicize option build into WordPress to feed to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, so don’t blame me if it looks odd… I can always go back to doing it manually. Oh, and I want to see them add Google+ to the mix.

Movie Trailer of the Week:

The Last Stand – In theatres January 18th, 2013Synopsis: The leader of a drug cartel busts out of a courthouse and speeds to the Mexican border, where the only thing in his path is a sheriff and his inexperienced staff. This film will mark a return to acting for veteran action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger, and pair him up with Johnny Knoxville, Harry Dean Stanton and one of my favourite hispanic actors, Luis Guzman.

News Article of the Week:

President Obama wins a second term.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/07/obama-acceptance-speech_n_2086832.htmlThere is no way you could avoid hearing this news, it was everywhere, and dominated Tuesday night’s television lineup. In what was expected to be one of the closest elections in recent history, turned into a steam rolling, with Obama claiming all the swing states with the exception of North Carolina. I’m guessing that binders full of women and threatening to kill Big Bird didn’t help Mitt Romney out at all. Something to note though, Mitt did take ~48% of the popular vote,,, just goes to show how different the Electoral College system is from what we have here in Canada.

Awesome Software of the Week:

How cool would it be if you could collaborate with your friends to make music online without any instruments? Google has stepped up and given us Jam with Chrome, which does exactly that. You can pick from a large choice of guitars, bass guitars, drums, keyboards and more, and play along with friends online.

I also feel that I will be returning to posting satirical or humorous news articles more… it just felt right.

As always, I’m still open to suggestions for other categories, and for nominations to get included on the list. You can let me know at: oftheweekATleighcDOTcom

Movie Trailer of the Week:

Hitchcock – In theatres November 23rd, 2012Synopsis: A love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville. The film takes place during the making of Hitchcock’s seminal movie Psycho. The cast includes Anthony Hopkins as the title character, Helen Mirren as Alma Reville, Jessica Biel as Vera Miles and one of my favourite sexy actresses, Scarlett Johansson as Janet Leigh

YouTube channel you should be subscribed to, of the week:

The Guild is an independent sitcom web series about a group of online gamers. The show started in the late summer of 2007, and for the first season was financed solely by PayPal donations from LOYAL FANS. Since season 2, The Guild has been distributed by Xbox Live and Microsoft and sponsored by Sprint.
Episodes vary from 3-8 minutes in length, and follow the Guild members’ lives online and offline.
“The Guild” has won many awards, including the SXSW, YouTube and Yahoo Web Series Awards in 2008, and 3 Streamy Awards in 2009: Best Comedy Web Series, Best Ensemble, and Best Actress for Felicia Day.